Page 41 of Two for Holding
The game ended.
On the way to the locker room, Jax held his breath until his erection subsided.Mostly.Adrenaline erections happened all the time after close games and common courtesy was to pretend at selective blindness, but it seemed disrespectful to enter a team space while sporting a full chub because Tom fucking Crowler had been so hot decimating the opposition.
The locker room after the game was awful.On the one hand, they had won, which meant Breezy put on East’s “winning” playlist (a lot of Nelly, some Jay-Z, some nineties rap, which, unfortunately, sounded very stupid to Jax’s uncultured ears.He was used to much less upbeat hip-hop, a sign of the times he lived in).On the other hand, no one talked except Abrahamov and Dmitriyev, speaking in quiet Russian in the corner.Jax didn’t want to know what they were saying.He doubted they felt differently than Hayes and Vanderbilt.
Jax escaped to a cold shower as quickly as he could.On his way out, he carefully didn’t look too closely at Tom, stripped down to his base layers and talking to the media.
This was fine.Jax could deal with this.He’d go out tonight.It had been ages; he hadn’t had sex since Edmonton, six weeks ago.No wonder he’d gotten pent up enough to fantasize about oral while at work.That was probably all this was, misplaced libido.He took a few deep, grounding breaths and washed his hair.If he went out tonight, he wanted to look good.
He returned to the locker room to hear Breezy loudly asking, “Hey, Ziti.You wanna come for dinner with my folks?They’d be so psyched to meet areal Italian.”
Luca, in the middle of tying his silver tie over an elegant dark blue suit, leveled Breezy with the most long-suffering expression known to man.“That is not my hockey nickname.”
“Sure, it is!Mazetti, ziti, you’re Italian.It’s perfect!”Breezy threw an arm around Luca’s shoulders.He wore a serviceable tan suit off the rack, given how it strained across his shoulders and thighs but wrinkled over his stomach, and one of the ties they sold in the merch store.The contrast could not have been more obvious if he’d tried.Breezy steered Luca out of the locker room still discussing the merits of baked ziti.Apparently, there were many.
In their wake, Hayes stared after the two of them, dumbfounded.“He’s, uh.Italian?”
“Yup.”Jax popped thepas obnoxiously as he could.
“What about the other thing?”
Mooney snorted derisively.“Ziti’s wheeled a girl in every city this road trip.Howie’s jealous; he could never.”
Howie looked up, made a face as if he wanted to be insulted, but then seemed to decide it might not be worth drawing more attention to himself.Rightly so.If Jax were in charge, Howie’d be doing nothing but bag skates and bench warming for the next three years.
“By the way,” Mooney added, throwing his bag over his shoulder with enough force to smack Hayes in the side.“IamMexican.”
Hayes watched him leave.“Well fuck,” he muttered.
Jax debated getting into it with him, telling him all the ways he’d been out of line.He debated walking up to Howie and asking him what the hell he’d been thinking.He took a deep breath and did precisely none of it.
He was too angry, too emotional, and weirdly, still a little horny.If he tried for confrontation now, he’d break things beyond repair.Better to try in the morning, when he could remember nineteen-year-old rookies like Howie spent their entire lives surrounded by bullshit and probably didn’t know better.
Hayes, though, was old enough to know better.Jax might need two or three nights to stomach talking to him again.
The bus ride to the hotel remained quiet.If Breezy had been there, he might have livened things up, forced some sort of connection back into the team.But his family lived in Montreal, and he used his curfew exemption to stay with them (after dinner out with Luca, it seemed).Jax spent the time researching queer-friendly clubs on his phone.Normally, he’d have waited till they got there, and no one else could see his phone screen.Normally, he wouldn’t have dared trying to hook up in Canada.
These were not normal times.Jax clung to sanity by a thread, and when it snapped, he’d either scream his sexuality in Hayes’s face or kiss Tom on the mouth.Neither of which constituted a safe or sane option.
They got in around ten, but the clubs opened by eleven or so.Jax could post up at the bar and wait for things to get good.He changed quickly, keeping the tailored suit pants but switching the button-up shirt and jacket for a plain white T-shirt.If he had suspenders with him, he might have gone for a newsboy cap to round out the look.He styled his hair to be a little messy, just to make his highlights pop, then dabbed a little eau de toilette on his wrists and behind his ears because he was classy like that.He pulled on his shoes, checked he had his wallet, his phone, his room key, and a condom.
And then Tom knocked on the door.
Jax could tell it was Tom because even his knock was polite and a little reticent.
He yanked open the door.“No.”
Tom held up his tablet.“I thought we could—the power play—”
“Tom,” Jax said with all the patience he could muster.“It has been a very tense and emotional day, and I really need to suck someone’s dick about it, all right?”
Tom’s entire face went red.He stepped inside, and the door fell shut behind him.“InMontreal?Jax, you’ll get recognized—”
Jax groaned.“I can’t… How can you possibly want to talk about hockey right now?”
“I don’t.”Tom said it so quietly Jax barely heard it.“I, um, didn’t want to be alone.”
Well, shit.There went Jax’s plans.
